Saturday, August 26, 2006

The hotel broadband has become narrowband, tending to 0. So it's getting difficult to post. Anyway. The Americans have resigned early this morning. Peng this time looked concentrated and aggressive, and Curtis did not last one hour. It was like he was saying "hey boy, you won't be so lucky this time". Anyway, he has done a great tournament, and can be happy to say he has beaten a pro in an even competition game. Calvin tried a bit harder, but Na was merciless. Both Japanese fell in semifinals too, so the finals are the same as last year, a double China-Korea match. Last year it was a 1-1 for each country, let's see today.

No surprises. China, Korea, Japan and USA qualified in both categories. I finally got to know what the Ing system tie breakers are : SODOS, SOS, SOSODOS, SOSOS. It is to be noted that Curtis would have qualified even if he had lost to China, and even if the first tie breaker was SOS. In U18, China won to Korea by ... 1 point

Friday, August 25, 2006

Round 4 is over. It has featured several derbies, at least from the political / historical point of view. Both categories have had a Korea vs Japan and a USA vs Russia. The misteries of the poker deck are way beyond human understanding. Anyway, both derbies have been won by Korea and the USA. This is almost completely defining the double final 4.

Korea, USA and China can be said to be qualified in both categories. If the junior Japanese player wins the 5th and last round he should make it too, since he has a high SOS (lost to China / Korea). But perhaps Mateusz from Poland can qualify since this morning he has defeated Singapore. He'd need to win, and get some unlikely losses by CN and KR to improve his SOS. In U18 things are a bit tougher. Pairings (which are fixed, do not depend on results) have not been published yet, but with 3 wins there are Japan, China and USA, and with 2 wins there are Canada, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore (last 2 with a low SOS). Unless strange results happen, it will be difficult for the current top 4 not to pass. Curtis from USA is the one with the lowest SOS.

I am using Christoph Gerlach's MacMahon software to provide the standings (running under linux, with the 'wine' emulator), but it may be that the ties are not decided by SOS and SOSOS. The tournament system is defined by Ing rules and has subsidiary columns named SJH, BJH, SFH and BFH.

Oh, btw, today we got to know that the Chinese senior player is not 2 dan amateur, as written in the brochure, but 2 dan professional, and a member of the Chinese national team. Indeed, his style and attitude playing and commenting is not that of a mere amateur 2 dan.

PS : I won't make any more mistakes with the results. I've discovered that Gerlach's software includes a pairing export feature that I had not noticed. I am editing the exporting files with the vim editor.

PS #2 : Sorry that the standings are overlapping the posts frame making it difficult to read clearly. If some blogger.com user can give me hints on how to arrange it, I will appreciate it. Also on how to view the blog traffic.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Somehow bad news for Curtis fans. He could not win against Terayama (JP), who is unbeaten in U18, as well as Kang (KR). This year the japanese team seems to be performing much better than last year. Anyhow, Curtis should not have problems to reach the finals.

In U18 we could also see another victory of a western player against an Eastern Asian. This time by Rita (HU). The game had a funny ending, since the white bowl had 6 less stones, and when filling the board, both players had finished their set of stones. However, a quick refill of the bowls could easily determine the winner.

And in U12 there was the first victory of a western, by Alexander Matushkin (RU). In U12 Na Hyun, last year finalist is the only unbeaten player, having beaten Lou (CN). Again it seemed the Chinese player had a hard time concentrating, but it is somehow understandable due to his young age.

A TV camera (I don't know from which TV station) recorded some images. Speeches had been previously written and pretranslated, so that Chinese to English translation could be ensured.

Players and team leaders introduced themselves to the public. Chinese (including all countries/ areas of Chinese influence) and the Thai player talked in Chinese, Koreans in Korean, and Japanese in Japanese, with translation to Chinese. Western players used English.

Followed the tournament draft, using the traditional method of the poker deck.

Then Mr Yang explained the Ing scoring system, comparing it to the Japanese and Chinese and claiming it solved their flaws. He said Ing rules expect not to penalize players by placing extra stones to prove that a group is dead. He said that Chinese mentality can't accept somebody say "this group is dead, because I am stronger and I know".

Since there was enough time, he went on to explaining suicide and special life and death cases, based on the bent 4 in the corner. There was no time to explain the Ing ko.

Chun Poong-Jo 8p, the Korean team leader, who is well known in Europe since he has attended many EGCs, went on to discuss with Mr Yang how Korean rules were slightly different to Japanese.

Mr Yang insisted when comparing rulesets that he absolutely did not want to offend any country nor say a ruleset was better than other. He finished saying that it would make sense to have soon a unified ruleset, and called the different Go Federations to make efforts in that direction. Go is the only sport with different rulesets, a drawback to become Olympic sport.

Somebody asked (in Chinese) that since under Ing rules, players get 2 penalty points for every overtime period they use (and forfeit after the 3rd), if it was considered legal to play useless moves to punish the opponent. Mr Yang said no judge could determine if a move is legal or not.

about the 23rd WYGC

This is a blog of the 2006 world youth goe championship, held in Shenzhen (China), a city next to HongKong. Venue is the Jinhui Jasper hotel. Written by Marc Gonzalez Carnicer, from Catalonia, coordinator of the 22nd WYGC held in Barcelona in August 2005. Blog under the FDL, which basically means you are free to use this information, provided credit is given.